


It's The Giving Season

by BlueTigerTime



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gen, Multi, OT3, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, cros lonely and mitulas bored: the fic, gaming analogies, gratuitous use of christmas carols, really bad attempt at latula aaa, troll christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5443868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueTigerTime/pseuds/BlueTigerTime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cronus is lonely, and it's the Gristmas season. The lights, the carols, the feeling of having won the game.</p><p>It's about time Mitula and Latula shared the Christmas spirit with those less fortunate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's The Giving Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Newtavore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtavore/gifts).



> giftstuck! prompt was:  
> Mituna and Latula let Christmas Spirit get the better of them; this leads to them deciding that all Cronus needs is a little bit of rehabilitating TLC.  
> Proceed to dousing the poor troll in as much affection as they can muster.  
> heres ur cromitula!

_Come and trim my Christmas tree with some decorations bought at Tiffany's;_

_I really do believe in you;_

_Let's see if you believe in me…_

_Santa baby, forgot to mention one little thing... A ring..._

_I don't mean on the phone; Santa baby,_

_So hurry down the chimney tonight..._

\--

“Tuna, I dunno…” 

“Tula! It’th gristhmath, we. We gotta. We gotta get him something. It’th for the thpirit and nobody can resist the lighth. The lighth, Tula, the lighth.” 

“I mean, it could definitely be rad if we got involved, ‘cause we’re rad so therefore what we do has an added sense of radness to it, but…” 

“Who the ffuck is gonna get him shit?” 

“You have got a point, Tuna. It’s hard to argue with that, haha.” 

“Then don’t argue with me!” 

“Shit, babe, maybe I won’t.” 

\--

Imagine this scene: it’s Gristmas day, and the streets are alight with blow-up Santas of a different culture, colored lights, and enough yards of tinsel to go from Beforus to Earth and back, probably. All the houses have their lights on, and those who don’t are because those trolls and humans are out, dressed in gaudy sweaters and singing songs. None of it sounds very good but it’s the thought that counts, so the majority (still wary of what the end of the game truly means, and what it might ultimately not mean) cut them some slack just for the sake of allowing someone to relax.

In this scene, some trolls are at home, feet kicked up on coffee tables. Some of these trolls are draped in blankets, sagged like bags of potatoes on tacky, purple couches. Some of these trolls are half-asleep because they didn’t plan to even see anyone around the holidays, much less leave the lights on to let the carolers in. Some of these trolls (one, in fact) are named Cronus Ampora. 

This very troll, Cronus Ampora, doesn’t even flinch when a pair of carolers arrive to his door and knock. He doesn’t move when the knocking gets louder, twicefold; just opens an eye and rolls it. All he wants is to relax and not think about all the company he doesn’t have, but no. Irritations come from every which way. There is no getting away from them.

“MERRY GRISTMAS” sounds through the door, politely insistent and passive aggressive. Cronus closes his eyes fully and pulls the blanket up a little higher, frowning because now his consciousness has been jostled into alertness and that shit’s no fun.

“No one’s fuckin’ home, leave a message after the beep.” He grumbles out loud, only enough to be heard through the door, and not even clearly. As for the beep, he considers trying to be clever, or actually sarcastically helpful. He settles for trilling high-pitched, and realizes far too late what that probably sounded like. Oh, shit. Well. If someone thinks he’s being naughty on Gristmas, even better of a reputation for him, which in turn should lead to more people trying to become a part of that reputation, so really, that was a good thing. That accidental-sex-noise was a good thing because shut up. Shut up is why.

There is a sudden buzz of conversation, and Cronus furrows his brow as he tries to listen, fins flicking up. He’s already awake and a little cold from where the blanket slipped when he spoke, so might as well. The conversation’s a little lost to him, and the focusing gets him to that annoying level where he wants to get up but the sleep is still clinging to the nerves in his limbs so he doesn’t move to get closer. Appropriately enough, he only manages to catch snippets of the conversation. 

“Hey… answering… we should…” a feminine voice rolls up and down almost melodically, pleasant on his fins. It sounds familiar.

“...Too… thath…” a lower voice, buzzing, deeper. This one sends sparks shooting from his toes to his horns. Along with that, a revelation comes.

Fuck him, it’s the legendary couple.

\--

Outside, the legendary couple try to decide what to do next at this juncture. The obvious dilemma remains; the spirit of Gristmas themselves demands that they share the happiness with one of the only trolls who will receive none this season, but what to do when they are stopped by something as simple as a door?

“Hey, he’s not answering. I don’t wanna be one of those girlz, but maybe we should leave, give the bro some space. Give greaze some space, you feel, M.T?” Latula says, knuckles hovering near the door uncertainly. She’s been thinking about this; the idea of giving Cronus Ampora, of all people, 

“It’th too late for thath, we’re already here and bethideththth. Look at him. Fuckin’ alone, the lother-”

The teal troll frowns for a moment, then nudges the gold insistently. “Easy there, bee-babe. Roll it just a bit back.”

Mituna shakes his head, the few curls that are out from under his helmet bouncing wildly. He makes a little sound, a buzzing hum under his breath, but goes silent either way. It happens sometimes; he zones out at the end of sentences and then says something he regrets. Sometimes he remembers to apologize, sometimes he doesn’t, sometimes he just apologizes later, when he actually does remember but no one else does.

Latula chirrs affectionately, just to reassure him, then turns her attention back to the stubborn door. She raises a hand, three fingers extended. “Okay, new plan. On three, we’re gonna get even more spirit in this neighborhood. Ready?”

The plan goes as expected. They get the response they expected, but at least this confirms that Ampora’s even in there in the first place. This throws a new wrench in the plan, however; Cronus is home, but he doesn’t want them there. It’s not in good taste to make him want them to be there, but maybe they can just convince him. If he really wants them gone, they can always go find Popo-Merrygamz and resume the caroling. It’s not too late in the evening; the night won’t be ruined if this goes to shit.

“Crocro Puffs, come on now! It’s just one song. One tight song. We practiced it for a mad long time and everything.” She calls through the door, a little louder than before. Mituna knocks just for good measure. There’s a moment of silence, a grunt, things shuffling.

The door opens to reveal an incredibly scruffy-looking seadweller, and Latula blinks at the wave of weird feelings that flood through her for a second. Weird things; wanting to fix his hair, smooth down his shirt, and now. Now, she sees more clearly where Mituna is coming from, and true, she’d seen it before but she hadn’t really. 

Maybe she’ll just let this pan out, see where it goes. The night is still young.

\--

Once inside and situated, Latula brushes herself off and looks at the violet for a long moment. In the corner of her eyes, she can see Mituna starting to squirm in place. It takes all the self-control she has not to do the same, but that’s just going to make this that much more awkward, and rad couples like the two of them don’t get awkward. That’s not their thing.

Cronus crosses his legs, uncrosses them, crosses them again. Mituna takes a step, then stops halfway into the next. Latula wants to say something but there’s this feeling she has. What they have right now is delicate. Fragile.

And of course, Cronus is the one to break it.

“So. Uh.” He uncrosses his legs again and rad’s sake, she wants to hold his legs down because that’s making her nervous by proxy and she is not down for this right now, the way it’s going. In her head, this situation went… differently. Not in any specific way, just not… Not like this. There was definitely less leg action in her head.

That’s probably because of the entire Cronus variable, now that she thinks about it, but that’s not a thing a rad girl would think, so she drops that train of thought like it’s hot. 

Cronus coughs and his gills flutter with the movement. The flare of color draws her eyes to his throat, and she feels that urge to do something remarkably conciliatory, even pale. She’s caught up in thinking about fins and gills when Mituna suddenly enters her field of vision and sits next to Cronus, then puts his hands over the Aquarius’ to still them. Silently, she agrees, but out loud she says, “Hey.”

Cronus stares at his hands, Latula, then at Mituna. He doesn’t pull away, which is progress. Mituna makes a vague noise, mumbles something about ‘stop moving’ and very jerkily lifts his hands to let them hover. Then, he raises them higher, nearer Cronus’ head. The seadweller twitches back, fins flaring, and Latula tenses up, preparing, and words tumble out to stall for time before something happens.

“Listen, Amporad, it’s Gristmas. We just-” Latula says, and her voice stops Mituna’s hands as well as Cronus’ fins, “you know, you don’t really get all that much attention, and we just wanted to help you out, you know. Not be alone.” 

She sees Cronus’ eyebrows shoot up, the suspicion flood every nerve in his body in the way he tenses up, the way his fins flare harder and his jaw trembles. Mituna’s already turned to watch her speak and she realizes that was a misstep. Fuck, she should know better.

“Not! That I meant it like that-”

“What exactly are ya tryna say? I get it, _Pyrope,_ I’m a sad sack a shit an’ ‘s all just a pity party.” He hisses, starting to show teeth and goddamn it, handling these trolls piles on stress like no other. Latula opens her mouth to explain.

“Well, you’re kinda a lother.” Mituna pipes up, shrugging like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Latula grimaces and starts counting all the life decisions she’s made that lead up to this incredible mistake. Appropriately, Cronus turns his gaze back to her matesprit and makes a face like he’s about to growl, but Mituna reacts first, “But we’re all lothers after the game, so we might ath well be lothers together.”

There’s another almost painful silence. Latula stays tense, watching Cronus carefully, allowing herself to relax a little at his murmured ‘yeah, fuck you too’. 

“Play nice, you two,” she says, and tries to ignore how relieved she sounds, “we already got our high scores.”

“What, you tryna auspicitize?” Cronus retorts, accent lighter than usual- is he trying to overcompensate? Is that it?- as he gives his trademark smirk, but it feels warmer than it usually does. She blames it on the heater, and she continues to place the blame there when she shrugs, gives no answer. Mituna also shrugs for no reason, and it makes her smile. The heater, you know. Mituna matches her with a grin, and shifts closer to Cronus so they’re hip-to-hip.

“I’m not pithh for your fithy athhh. I know what pith feelth like. I juth wanna fikth your hair.” Two gloved hands come closer to curly, messy hair- not shiny with grease, which Latula should have noticed earlier but now that she’s noticed it, she can’t unsee it- before they all hesitate, take a deep breath. Mituna gently touches his fingertips to the stray hairs on Cronus' forehead, the yellow stark against the black. The other reaches up and take hold of the edges of the gloves, trimmed nails pushing up to reveal gray skin. Latula breathes as quiet as she can.

The gloves are suddenly off in every sense of the word. Latula smiles wider at the thought, and Mituna just chirps when he finally gets his fingers into Cronus’ hair. 

\--

His name is Mituna Captor, and the very first thing he does once his claws get into hair softer than he expected is to chirp because damn. Not everything about Cronus is greasy, it seems. When the violet makes a noise, as if to move away, Mituna’s mouth reacts first.

“Kurlth liketh to do thith with mmmy hair, I got practice. Lemme. Juth lemme,” He says frantically, spread fingers that first accommodated for horns close. Cronus’ horns are surprisingly rough for a highblood, but as he thinks about that and the way Cronus is starting to purr alarmingly loud, his mouth doesn’t stop moving: “I know what I’m doing.”

Cronus seems to believe him, if the way he’s closed his eyes and his fins are fluttering is any indication. Mituna doesn’t know much about fish, but there’s not really a debate to what that means. He just keeps threading fingers through the hair, trying to make little spikes around the base of Cro’s horns so that he looks like he’s just been electrified. It looks nice and reminds him of his own helmet hair so to match, Mituna tilts his head back to try and get his helmet off. 

Like a well-oiled machine, Latula moves forward to slip his helmet off, a few metallic clicks sounding as the latches come off. Cronus’ eyes flutter open when it happens, and they might as well be literally shining. In fact, they are when he moves his hands to brush Mituna’s hair out of his face and reveal multi-colored eyes, scars crisscrossing their way up to the psiion’s horns and to his temples. Cronus doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to; the expression is all there in the way his mouth suddenly twists, the way his brows furrow. Mituna’s smile falls a little, fangs poking out of his mouth with a tiny glint of white. Fuck, here comes the random reminders of feelings and shit. He focuses, like he would at the beginning of the game, before it. Nothing happens; no buzz of electricity, no hair moving, no little pull of concentration behind his eyes and at the base of his horns.

Damn, he misses his psiioniics. Imagine being able to braid all his hair and actually spike Cronus’ hair with no effort. The good ol’ days. The terrible, terrible, half-remembered days, and then the endless days after that in the bubbles.

“Yeah.” Cronus replies, and Mituna jerks at the reminder that he’s thinking out loud again (but he has to wonder if that’s because the helmet’s off. Sometimes, he wonders if his skull ends there, if the helmet is what holds it all in).

Latula moves around the two of them to behind Cronus, just to meet Mituna’s eyes. That comforts him; to know she’s there; so it emboldens him to bite the bullet and wrap his hands around Cronus’ horns properly. He is delighted when Cronus sucks in a breath and shudders; he might not have those powers at his fingertips anymore, but he swears he feels the sparks shoot up and down his spine. Latula giggles softly. He still sees Cronus’ fins flare and relax at the sound- she is right behind him, to be fair, and she’s smiling as she leans back because he’s just noticing that she was close enough for her to essentially be breathing in Cro’s fins, and. Oh. _Oh._

So it’s a game now. Well, Mituna’s a gamer for a reason, and he’s prepared to fight for this particular high-score. For the sake of acknowledging Latula’s first move, he shifts his thumbs noticeably higher on the candy-corn where he’s got a grip until he sees Latula’s eyebrows raise above her rad-ass spectacles. Cronus leans back with the movement, as if he expected Tuna to go farther with his move, but Tuna knows his strategy. That’s not how the game goes. 

The game goes like this: he tightens his hands there, moving forward a little because seadwellers tend to be stupidly strong, but Cro gets the message soon enough. And when he does, he’s rewarded by Tuna following the curve of his horns even higher to just after the first bend. This makes Cro tilt his head back, right into Tula’s hands. Tula purrs lowly, and though Tuna sees the hands disappear, he still catches a flicker of red glove before her hands go back behind Cro.

Tula is a gamer-girl, through and through. As such, Tuna is not super surprised when her gloves reappear over his own. He pouts because his gloves are off and so should hers, right? That’s unfair; they’re on unequal ground now. He doesn’t know if Cro is the third player or just the board, but if he’s the former, then the only person here still with all their shit together is Tula. If anything, Tula’s been unfairly nerfed and Cro’s up against players way above his level. What a scrub.

“Take them off!” He whispers, fussing at her hands when she giggles again and shakes her head. She bats his hands back, replacing his fingers with her own. Cro shifts, flinching when he ends up bumping against Tula’s chest and opening his eyes to meet Tuna’s. He’s waving, because that’s the polite way of saying hi.

“Do I gotta take her gloves off myself too?” He says, smirking slowly, languidly, until he squeaks abruptly. It catches Tuna off guard, so he laughs, which quickly turns into a snort. By the time he’s calmed down, Cronus is brighter purple than Mituna’s ever seen him.

“Talk a lot of big game, but you’re not too good at it, are you?” The teal above them both says, the teasing note in her voice clear and her glasses lower on her nose than before, just for the sake of winking at her matesprit. Cro is purple enough that the psiion instinctively rubs his horns more insistently. The effort to calm works; a violet blush is still present, but the seatroll goes increasingly more limp the more backbone Tuna puts into it, and Tula certainly doesn’t complain when he ends up against her.

“I got better things ta do,” he tries valiantly. It ends with him closing his eyes again and Latula’s hands pulling away form them both, a precarious balance until she shucks her gloves off. Tuna purrs jerkily, the lisp making it lag for a moment when all the bits in his mouth get weird before it bursts from him in a wave of sound. Cro matches the purr smoother, because he’s Cronus and everything’s about looking better than everyone else even when he’s absolutely in last place, and says, “than play your fuckin’ games.”

“Hmm. Like what?” Latula says softly, placing her hands on his shoulders. Tuna watches her flex her fingers as she squeezes his shoulders. Ampora shifts back, tilting his head up just so, “Do you want to stop the game?”

Latula and Mituna meet eyes, and suddenly the game becomes co-op. Tuna smiles and takes his hands off Cro’s horns, moving in tandem with Tula as she shifts her hands under grey arms so she can shift him even higher up and Tuna can lie down. When they’ve finished, they’ve officially become a sandwich; a cold one, warmed on top. Heh.

And look at that, Cronus doesn’t complain when the two plant smooches on his fluttering fins. Mituna's gonna have to find that human plant, that mistletoe shit. He's ready for the next level, alright. 

\--

His name is Cronus Ampora, and maybe he’s rethought his opinions about the holiday season.

\--

_I don't want a lot for Christmas_

_There is just one thing I need_

_I don't care about the presents_

_Underneath the Christmas tree..._

_I just want you for my own_

_More than you could ever know_

_Make my wish come true_

_All I want for Christmas is you..._

**Author's Note:**

> i considered having them talk in their actual quirk, but thats annoying so lets not  
> but i did put in the things youd hear out loud so if theres any confusion about that there it is
> 
> also i was gonna. idk wtf to do w/ mitunas unreadable typos so i slipped some in there but not too many so apologies about that
> 
> i dont rlly latula but i really wanted to try and make this a thing so here you go!!


End file.
